This proposal has two purposes: First, to identify reasons why educable mentally retarded (EMR) children are rejected by their intellectually superior peers. Toward this end, three broad categories of variables will be studied: (1) Characteristics of raters that may cause them to reject others, (2) Behaviors exhibited by the retarded ratees that may cause them to be rejected, and (3) The degree to which the label "mentally retarded" evokes rejection. The second purpose for this proposal is to identify methods to improve the social position of retarded children, once some reasons for their rejection are known. Three experimental paradigms will be developed to study why retarded children are rejected. The first paradigm requires raters to observe on video tapes experimentaaly manipulated ratee behaviors and to express verbally their attitudes toward the actors. The second paradigm requires the raters to interact with ratees in identical situations to those shown on video tapes. Here, the raters will be required to respond behaviorally to the ratees, not with verbally expressed attitudes. The third paradigm will examine whether the characteristics of raters and ratees that influence rejecting attitudes and behaviors in the laboratory also influence them in the classroom. Intensive classroom observations will be conducted for this purpose. The information regarding reasons why EMR children are rejected will be applied to create situations that could result in the improved acceptance of these children. These situations will be developed and tested in experimental paradigms.